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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the weakness of the current era of economics, in Edmund Wilson's account?

2. How do widely distributed cultural traits affect genes?

3. What field does culture need to be linked with, in order to be explained, according to Wilson?

4. What beneficial uses can incest have in cultures, in Durham's account?

5. What does natural consilience connect?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does postmodern art resist consilience, in E.O. Wilson's account?

2. What social science does Wilson credit with coming closest to consilience?

3. How does art look through the gene-culture evolution paradigm Wilson offers?

4. What ethical perspective does Wilson call the Transcendental view?

5. What is the sign, in EO Wilson's account, that culture is evolving?

6. What does Wilson say the liberal arts should address?

7. What threats to contemporary culture does Wilson describe, and how is consilience useful in answering them?

8. What is the consilient view of religious ethics?

9. How do the senses function as epi-genetic rules?

10. What role does Wilson say creativity has in survival and evolution?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Are 'epi-genetic rules' really just another way of saying complex social factors that have to be experienced individually? Does Wilson really evade the complexity and individuality of experience and sensation and language use?

Essay Topic 2

Is there a contradiction in how Wilson distinguishes between the social sciences and natural sciences, and yet argues for the overlap between all forms of knowledge? Is he saying that branches of knowledge are distinct, or not? Is he saying that all branches of knowledge are linked or not?

Essay Topic 3

European and American birth rates are relatively low compared to many developing countries. How do you reconcile this with Wilson's arguments about evolution, and how the expansion of power over territory allows the dissemination of genes? Has America's influence been genetic? How would you characterize its influence, and reconcile its influence with its low birth rates?

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